People aren't interested in conversations where everybody agrees on the issues and perhaps differ only in nuances. Nope. A heated debate is what people want to follow. Even here in PF this is evident: the threads where people disagree get the most comments. — ssu

That’s a very good point to me. I would go further in arguing this. Notice that we are in a philosophy forum and lack of consensus in philosophy is neither a big issue nor uncommon. In Western philosophy, be it metaphysics or ethics or epistemology, there is lots of disagreement, and no matter how weird a philosophical theory may sound, one may find advocates supporting it. And also philosophical debates can get heated due to intellectual straining. I think some disagreement can be found also in the scientific debate, especially in the human and social sciences. And also this disagreements can get heated.
There is a difference however with the kind of disagreement one experiences in political debates. Political debates are more directly and intentionally oriented toward political decisions and actions. And in this case the debates get heated not due to the intellectual effort per se but because people feel more materially threatened in their economic, social, biological conditions and of those they care about.
IN A PHILOSOPHY FORUM, what should be more than welcomed is a more PHILOSOPHICAL approach, not a political one even when we talk about politics and divisive political subjects, like the war in Ukraine or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So our intellectual efforts shouldn’t move from beliefs to actions/decisions, but the other way around: from actions/decisions to beliefs. We SHOULD NOT GIVE FOR GRANTED notions of human rights, democracy, freedom of speech, international law, nations, self-determination, states, morality,propaganda, etc. we should find ALL OF THEM open for debate. We should SUSPEND our pro-active approach (like the open and crypto-activists in this thread and the like are doing) and dig into our assumptions. Make them explicit and open for questioning, further explanations or justifications.
And such an approach should be backed by adequate means to do that like clarifying ambiguous terminology, articulating reasoning from premises to conclusions, provide accurately reported evidence and source, provide illustrative examples, avoid to replace literal/descriptive language with non-literal/value language, avoid to replace actual arguments with insults and dismissive remarks, avoid to replace DE RE arguments with AD HOMINEM arguments, etc.
Constructive discussions are not necessarily the ones where people converge in conclusions (which is rationally possible when people agree on premises and procedures to get from premises to conclusions like in mathematics or logic) but also the ones where respective views are presented in a way that is rationally compelling and scrutinizible, ALSO WHEN TALKING ABOUT DIVISIVE POLITICAL SUBJECTS WHICH WILL LIKELY REMAIN DIVISIVE.

:100: :up: Right on, @neomac

Indeed not only Merkel has NOT admitted what he claims she has, but it can not even be inferred from what she actually said or equated with what she actually said: reinforcing Ukrainian military not only is not incompatible with pursuing a cease-fire but it could also be instrumental to preserving a cease-fire. — neomac

Just gaslighting apologetics. What does Merkel say:

The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine. It also used this time to become stronger as can be seen today. — Merkel

Now this is well into the war. If she wanted to say that the goal of making Ukraine stronger was to deter Russia and so avoid a war ... she would have said that! She's not a moron.

The reinterpretation of what she said as somehow to support a ceasefire through strength, is memory holing the whole episode. Back in autumn 2022 the Western narrative was that Russia was weak, Russia was falling apart, Russia was losing and Ukraine was in the process of inflicting a brilliant victory. The Western talking heads and officials were in a circle jerk of patting each other on the cock in celebration of this brilliant geopolitical strategy, in which the Ukrainian build up, with Western assistance, since 2014 was to credit for Ukraine's extraordinary prowess on the battlefield. Various politicians and officials, in both the West and Ukraine, were taking credit for the brilliant move of using Minsk as a cover to build up Ukraine to defeat Russia.

Merkel in this statement was buying into this narrative of Ukrainian victory and taking a bit of the credit.

And it wasn't just Merkel, plenty did a little victory lap of how Ukraine "outplayed" the Russians and Minsk was part of that deception.

A version of events proudly asserted by Ukrainian politicians even before the larger 2022 war even started:

“From my point of view, the Minsk agreements were born dead,” said Volodymyr Ariev, an MP from Poroshenko’s party. “The conditions were always impossible to implement. We understood it clearly at the time, but we signed it to buy time for Ukraine: to have time to restore our government, our army, intelligence and security system.” — The Guardian

Now, before the war started it would have been controversial for Western politicians to join this narrative, but a few months into the war when the West understood Ukraine and itself to have won, then saying that Minsk was about building up Ukraine into the strong modern nation that is spanking Russia on the battlefield was simply being part of the cool winning club. Seemed at that time (if you believed what you saw everywhere on Western mainstream and social media was even partially correct, that it can't be pure invention) that this duplicitous strategy was working and the people in Ukraine that wanted only to buy time for a big war were correct.

Now, as I mentioned in my comments, more important that what Merkel or anyone else says after the facts, is those facts themselves.

A core element of Minsk was disarming the Nazi groups who literally burned their political rivals (aka. normal fucking people) aline in a building and were constantly shelling civilians.

Western countries had to literally pass laws that arms were not to be transferred to organizations their own governments viewed as Nazi terrorists (which they obviously were). These laws were passed because it's hard to vote against a ban on weapons for Nazis but journalists went regularly to demonstrate the West was not following its own laws much less Ukraine trying to implement Minsk by disarming these non-state groups.

Europe could have put pressure for these kinds of obvious provisions of Minsk to be implemented, which would not only be a demonstration that the agreements were negotiated in good faith and Germany and France doesn't want Nazi's running around with guns and artillery any more than the Russians, but had the various paramilitary explicitly Nazi groups been disarmed and removed from the front lines the actual ceasefire may have been actually implemented by Ukraine professional forces. As important, if you remove fanatical Nazis who explicitly call for a Great War with Russia, explicitly claim war is a way of life for them and they want more of it, don't hesitate to explicitly outline how a war would be a purifying process for the nation, from the front lines then if it is Russia who breaks the ceasefire you could at least plausibly make that claim.

And that's only one element of the agreements that Ukraine did not attempt to implement and the West did not use any leverage to get Ukraine to implement.

You may say "that's what friends do" but the Nazi's aren't "Ukraine's friends", Zelensky even tried going to talk to them to get them to follow orders from the president and they just told him no. Now, had the West put pressure for the disarmament of these groups (i.e. no more weapons until their disarmed and removed from the front lines and the situation on the front professionalized) then that would have actually supported Zelensky's attempt to avoid a war, which I have no problem believing was genuine but it is in fact undermined by not only the West tolerating the arming of literal Nazis but that was clearly the policy in order to "calibrate" a conflict to imposes costs on Russia as the RAND documents happily explains to us.

The continued shelling of civilians made the larger 2022 war inevitable and the West doing nothing to restrain their Nazi dogs is one of the critical contributors to "somewhat higher intensity" fighting that we see.

The position that Merkel was taking credit for Ukrainian "winning" by helping to negotiate a bad faith deal to buy time was not controversial, that was the accepted facts and talking heads didn't hesitate to explain it to us and Merkel didn't run to explain "no, no, no! not strength in the sense of beating the Russians, that we all know is totally happening, but strength to maintain a ceasefire that unfortunately didn't happen!"

The apologetics that Merkel (and plenty of others as seen above) meant something else only arose after it turned out Ukraine wasn't totally and easily beating the Russians and that maybe it would have been better to try to implement Minsk to avoid a giant war that turns out has gotten hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians killed.

You need to reach into the memory hole and dig out what the Western media was essentially playing on loud speaker, on repeat without interruption for months: Ukraine was winning, fighting for the "right to join NATO" (even when you can't actually join NATO because NATO doesn't let you in) is brilliant politics, Russia would collapse any day, and so on, the war was in no way regrettable but "teaching Russia a lesson", and that the West was pure and righteous and never did anything wrong and Ukraine was our innocent child finally taking flight from under our wing and learning to soar on the winds of angelic victory (just as we do since centuries).

Concerning "bad faith" accusations, apparently it's more plausible that Putin (arguably an expert in disinformatia) was duped by the Europeans (however interested in pacifying the conflict to come back to do business as usual with Russia, reason why they have been already rejecting/postponing NATO membership for Ukraine all along), than that Europeans were taking countermeasures against Putin's palpable bad faith back then (having Putin already violated various international and bilateral treaties by illegally annexing the Crimean peninsula and committing acts of armed aggression against Ukraine, and being very much interested in keeping a conflict in Donbas alive, to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, or to allow further annexations). LOL. — neomac

I can't even parse what you're even trying to say ... that concerning bad faith actions Putin was duped by European bad faith actions? Just in a different way than no one made much attempt to implement Minsk (because US policy was to have exactly the conflict we see and European leaders are merely the receptacle of American dick)? Is that what you're trying to say?

You have already quoted the parts of the paper that make clear that it is analysing a course of action where the US intensifies it's efforts. I'm not sure who you're trying to fool by now acting like the paper was an analysis of the existing US policy. Yourself? — Echarmion

The paper is an analysis of existing US policy:

Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. — RAND

You need to actually read the paper to play the "what does it say" game.

The word "expand" is used because the existing policy is to assist Ukraine which the paper is analyzing the existing policy of supporting Ukraine to inflict costs, in terms of blood and treasure, on Russia and is considering the possibility of increasing that assistance.

The paper goes onto to consider a bunch of factors, including nuclear deterrence:

Risks
An increase in U.S. security assistance to Ukraine would likely lead to a commensurate increase in both Russian aid to the separatists and Russian military forces in Ukraine, thus sustaining the con- flict at a somewhat higher level of intensity.20 Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, argued against giving Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine for precisely this reason.

Alternatively, Russia might counter-escalate, committing more troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine. Russia might even preempt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives. Such escalation might extend Russia; Eastern Ukraine is already a drain. Taking more of Ukraine might only increase the burden, albeit at the expense of the Ukrainian people. However, such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace. — Extending Russia ,RAND

Moreover, the authors asset very clearly that the risk of a larger conflict exists even without further provocations: that Russia "Russia might even preempt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives. Such escalation might extend Russia," which means the existing policy of supporting Ukraine may result in escalation by Russia that comes with significant risks.

The key phase being "significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility" and also "This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows".

I.e. if you actually read the paper the authors are quite clear that the existing policy of supporting Ukraine may result in a larger war which they see is highly risky for US policy as well as a high cost to Ukraine whatever happens. Their recommendation is to resolve the situation, in which further assistance of threat of assistance could be leverage in a resolution, but the authors are quite clear that the risks are very high, in particular to Ukraine, including of simply continuing the existing policy if you want to pretend the US made no further provocative moves between the paper being written and 2022 when Russia does indeed escalate.

Point of all this being: US policy makers knew what their policy was leading to and that the cost to Ukraine to be used as a tool to extend Russia would be enormous.

More importantly than this paper accurately predicting exactly what the consequences for the policy would likely be, the policy of drip feed of weapons systems to Ukraine is simply irrefutable evidence that the policy isn't and never was for Ukraine to "win" (otherwise you'd pour in everything they could use from day 1) but simply to calibrate the conflict at a "somewhat higher level of intensity" to inflict costs on Russia and, even more importantly than that, profit immensely in terms of arms and gas.

And this is all very obvious in only the most cursory analysis of obvious facts, without even need to get into the US policy clearly to arm the most extreme Nazi groups in Ukraine to ensure both the most bellicose actions possible towards the Russians but also to serve as fascist boots on the ground to deal with any Ukrainian resistance to the policy to march to war with a far more powerful neighbour which would obviously harm the country immensely and get a great many Ukrainians killed.

The reinterpretation of what she said as somehow to support a ceasefire through strength, is memory holing the whole episode. — boethius

Why are you so convinced that you alone have correctly understood what she was referring to?

The paper is an analysis of existing US policy: — boethius

I'm genuinely confused whether you just don't understand English grammar or whether you're just doubling down to avoid admitting that you overstated your case.

"Would" implies a conditional. Doing A would lead to B. Not (currently) doing A leads to B.

Point of all this being: US policy makers knew what their policy was leading to and that the cost to Ukraine to be used as a tool to extend Russia would be enormous. — boethius

Do you genuinely believe US policy makers are so good that they can predict future events with perfect accuracy? Noone, except perhaps the Russian planners, "knew" what would happen in 2022 years in advance.

the policy of drip feed of weapons systems to Ukraine is simply irrefutable evidence that the policy isn't and never was for Ukraine to "win" (otherwise you'd pour in everything they could use from day 1) but simply to calibrate the conflict at a "somewhat higher level of intensity" to inflict costs on Russia and, even more importantly than that, profit immensely in terms of arms and gas. — boethius

Real world policies of states are not monoliths. The goals you're listing are not mutually exclusive.

without even need to get into the US policy clearly to arm the most extreme Nazi groups in Ukraine — boethius

A policy you made up.

fascist boots on the ground to deal with any Ukrainian resistance to the policy to march to war with a far more powerful neighbour which would obviously harm the country immensely and get a great many Ukrainians killed. — boethius

An interesting fantasy but don't you think the fascist boots crossing the border from Russia are a much more effective motivation?

Why are you so convinced that you alone have correctly understood what she was referring to? — Echarmion

Just empty nothingness.

The West had no problem reporting this interpretation and portraying the Minsk agreements as a brilliant move by Ukraine and the West to prepare for an amazing job in the bigger war that was ongoing and understood to be essentially already won by Ukraine at the time.

It is not "I alone" that has this interpretation. Merkel is only one of many data points in evaluating this particular topic, you also have Ukrainian politicians explicitly stating they never intended to implement Minsk. More importantly there's the actual actions of further support to Nazis to shell civilians which is the surest way to provoke a larger war, which is what the US and Ukraine does and the war that would predictably result from doing that then happens.

'm genuinely confused whether you just don't understand English grammar or whether you're just doubling down to avoid admitting that you overstated your case.

"Would" implies a conditional. Doing A would lead to B. Not (currently) doing A leads to B. — Echarmion

As I clearly explain, the "would" is considering expanding an existing policy of supporting Ukraine to drain Russian blood and treasure in the Donbas which the paper has no problem recognizing is the existing policy.

The first sentence I cite is clearly recognizing the existing policy is to support Ukraine to drain Russian blood and treasure and considers the possibility, the "conditional" you are referring to, of expanding that policy.

I am responding to your statement that the authors aren't analyzing US policy at the time at all.

They clearly are (which is amazingly obvious if you read the paper) and they make that clear in stating making it clear that the status quo of the time is to support Ukraine to inflict costs, in blood and treasure, on Russia.

They consider the possibility of expanding that policy to inflict even greater costs and recommend not doing that.

However, they not only clearly recognize the existing policy as made clear in the sentence you are taking issue with:

Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. — RAND

"Expanding assistance to Ukraine" (which makes it clear there is already assistance to expand) "would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure" (which makes it clear the existing policy imposes costs which would then increase if the existing policy was expanded).

The meaning is very clear if you understand English and it's made even clearer by the context.

I know you would want to quibble by arguing that "expand" could be somehow ambiguous ... even though it's really not: if I say I want to "expand my restaurant" there is almost no English speaker that would interpret that to mean "I don't have a restaurant but I want to start one, thus expanding from zero restaurant", and if you said you wanted to expand your restaurant and it turns out you din't have a restaurant people would feel misled if it mattered (i.e. you were taking in loans backed by the restaurant you're expanding but also don't have) and would take it as a joke if the context was not serious (haha, good one, expand you're restaurant from zero restaurant to having a restaurant).

The authors talk of expanding assistance to Ukraine because they understand the policy is to assist Ukraine in fighting Russian proxy forces (the authors describe the war as a proxy war).

Therefore, knowing you would raise such absolutely ridiculous objections I then go onto cite more of the authors statements that further makes it clear they are analyzing the existing policy and it's consequence and risks:

Risks
An increase in U.S. security assistance to Ukraine would likely lead to a commensurate increase in both Russian aid to the separatists and Russian military forces in Ukraine, thus sustaining the con- flict at a somewhat higher level of intensity.20 Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, argued against giving Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine for precisely this reason.

Alternatively, Russia might counter-escalate, committing more troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine. Russia might even preempt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives. Such escalation might extend Russia; Eastern Ukraine is already a drain. Taking more of Ukraine might only increase the burden, albeit at the expense of the Ukrainian people. However, such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace. — Extending Russia ,RAND

Russia may "counter-escalate" and commit "more troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine" which is exactly what happens. They even identify this as a risk even if the US doesn't even do anything, clearly stating that Russia may "preempt U.S. action".

As mentioned, they make there position even clearer in their recommendation to resolve the conflict, compared to keeping it going (which may result in Russian preemptive escalation) or indeed expanding lethal aid, what the US actually does (which may also result in Russian escalation).

Conclusion
The option of expanding U.S. military aid to Ukraine has to be evaluated principally on whether doing so could help end the conflict in the Donbass on acceptable terms rather than simply on costs it imposes on Moscow. Boosting U.S. aid as part of a broader diplomatic strategy to advance a settlement might well make sense, but calibrating the level of assistance to produce the desired effect while avoiding a damaging counter-escalation would be challenging. — Extending Russia ,RAND

In other words, the authors get it exactly right: inviting escalation (which includes not even doing anything yet) would likely be a U.S. policy setback and come at significant costs to Ukraine, in terms of lives and territories.

The US, since the paper was written, supplied arms to Ukraine, eschewed negotiations, reiterated Ukraine would join NATO (that the authors also note elsewhere is not only escalatory but would surely solicit a response from Moscow), and the result is exactly what the authors of the paper predict: significant costs to Ukraine, inability for the US to have Ukraine prevail and therefore also a US policy setback.

However, if you read the paper and "US policy" in terms of some arguably sane US foreign policy is not your priority, but rather selling gas and arms to Europe, eliminating Europe as a geopolitical rival, as well as a new shiny war to distract the masses from any accountability for the older less-shiny and disastrous wars, and, unlike the authors of the paper, you have zero concern for Ukrainian territory or wellbeing in the slightest, then you would press all the buttons the authors describe that would help provoke a "somewhat higher level of intensity" in the fighting (aka. a giant war).

If you didn't want the conflict to go nuclear, then you'd drip feed your support to Ukraine so that they are never an actual military threat to Russian forces and therefore Russia would have no need to nuclear recourse.

Which is exactly what actually happens.

Of course, the authors are writing in the past but even more importantly explicitly say they're methodology is simply to consider different policy directions (all in the view of extending Russia to coerce compliance, in particular in the information space: i.e. RT hosting US dissidents basically) and recommendations are based on essentially the subjective intuition of the authors and they are explicitly not quantifying anything in this first paper (but further work would be needed to do that); so if you circle back to your earlier objection that the authors don't exactly quantify the larger war that occurs, that is to be expected as they aren't trying to do that but rather evaluate if that policy direction (i.e. expanding assistance to Ukraine to impose greater costs on Russia) would be a good idea or not. Their explicit objective is to try to identify areas of competition with Russian in which the ground is favourable to the US (and, as has been clearly demonstrated, provoking further escalation with Russian in Ukraine is not such a favourable direction).

Do you genuinely believe US policy makers are so good that they can predict future events with perfect accuracy? Noone, except perhaps the Russian planners, "knew" what would happen in 2022 years in advance. — Echarmion

Again, more pointless quibbling.

US policy makers clearly know by being informed by expert analysis such as the paper in question that their propping up Ukraine and also literal Nazis to fight in the Donbas while being vocal about Ukraine joining NATO ... oh, one day, and also withdrawing from the INF treaty (what the authors warn would almost certainly solicit a Russian response) all while rejecting outright negotiating with Russia, are actions that would very likely provoke a larger war between Ukraine and Russia, a war that Ukraine would almost certainly lose at great cost to Ukrainians.

They know what the likely consequence of their actions are because they not only have expert analysis informing them of the likely consequences but it's also common sense. Sending arms, withdrawing from INF, breaking US laws to make sure Nazis get weapons, are all well considered decisions. I know you would like to portray US policy as essentially a series of well meaning whims, but that's just dumb.

No where do I state the likely consequences (such as the likely consequences of different policy decisions that the RAND paper explains) are somehow "certain", but in this case what is likely is what actually happens.

Experts put significant effort into explaining "doing this will result in that" and then US Policy makers go and do this and the that results. The argument that somehow they thought something else would happen is just dumb.

The additional proof they know exactly what is likely to happen and that is the end result they too are looking for is the drip feed policy. If US policy makers actually thought Ukraine could prevail and actually wanted that to happen then they would not drip feed weapons systems all the way to a handful of F16s in 2024, they would have poured in the armour, the HIMARS, the other missile systems, and much more from the beginning, and if a weapons system really was not yet appropriate they would have been trialing those weapons systems to inform tactics and training for when those systems are required (such as when the Soviet equipment does in fact get all blown up).

Instead, not only are the actual facts that the weapons systems are drip fed, i.e. "calibrated" to support a certain level of conflict without escalating further in the language of the RAND document, but US officials are pretty clear in what they are doing as they don't hesitate to explain that they won't provide this or that so as not to escalate, and assert that as common sense for months ... and then one day provide that very thing.

Escalate to what? Obviously Ukraine actually winning.

And why the about face suddenly one day? Because the weapon system under consideration no longer actually risks Ukraine winning.

Even Western talking heads trying to fully back US policy would have trouble parsing this policy and would even ask themselves confusingly what exactly is the escalation the US Is trying to avoid? Of course then they got the memo to just stop asking themselves that question.

Real world policies of states are not monoliths. — Echarmion

Which is why I have no hesitation to really believe that Zelensky really did want to prevent the war from breaking out in doing things like trying to control the Nazis, but other factions in Ukraine prevailed (such as those very Nazis just straight-up telling Zelensky they wouldn't do what he says), and I'd have no problem believing many elites in Europe didn't want this war either but didn't prevail against US proxy politicians in Europe as well as US pressure and direct actions (such as stating Ukraine would join NATO, those 12 or so CIA bases in Ukraine, direct arms supply to Ukraine and so on).

Nowhere do I present state policy as monolithic.

The goals you're listing are not mutually exclusive. — Echarmion

... Yes, obviously the goals of drip feeding weapons to Ukraine to calibrate the conflict at "Ukraine loses" and profiting immensely from the conflict by locking in Europe to US gas exports and also a generalized arms sales bonanza in starting Cold War 2.0 are ... not mutually exclusive gaols.

I'm not sure what you're responding to, but yes, we agree that drip feeding weapons to Ukraine so that they loose, just slowly, is compatible with immense arms industry and fossil industry profits.

Totally agreed.

A policy you made up. — Echarmion

Not made up, I'll go repost the Western media's own investigations into this issue if you really want me to. Journalists go to see if these Nazi groups are getting Western arms and ... immediately verify that as fact ... and then they publish those finding and nothing change so even if you wanted to pretend it wasn't the policy because "they didn't know" ... as even 12 CIA bases literally right there can't "know everything with perfect accuracy" well they obviously know once it's reported in the media.

The policy is super duper clearly provoke a larger war between Russia and Ukraine and therefore in total consistency with that policy the Nazis are supported as they not only do the most provocative things like shell civilians but are also a provocation by just being their wholesome Nazi selves.

An interesting fantasy but don't you think the fascist boots crossing the border from Russia are a much more effective motivation? — Echarmion

Again, I can repost the West's own reporting on these Nazis and their effect on the Ukrainian political process. Every time I do nothing in the videos is ever refuted or discussed further and the topic suddenly switches, but if you really want to get into those pretty clear video reports that show pretty clearly what the Nazis were up to, I am more than happy to post those reportings again (reports made by the West's own mainstream media as no one at that time had yet gotten the memo that "Nazis are in and making any sort of sense is out").

The West had no problem reporting this interpretation and portraying the Minsk agreements as a brilliant move by Ukraine and the West to prepare for an amazing job in the bigger war that was ongoing and understood to be essentially already won by Ukraine at the time. — boethius

I don't remember anything of the sort.

support to Nazis to shell civilians — boethius

You're switching back to full on propaganda here.

I am responding to your statement that the authors aren't analyzing US policy at the time at all. — boethius

Deciding what your interlocutor is saying sure makes arguing easier.

They consider the possibility of expanding that policy to inflict even greater costs and recommend not doing that. — boethius

Great, so we finally agree. Now, as I asked before, can you point out how the US expanded their policy?

In other words, the authors get it exactly right: inviting escalation (which includes not even doing anything yet) — boethius

Nowhere does it say that not changing the policy would also invite escalation.

The US, since the paper was written, supplied arms to Ukraine, eschewed negotiations, reiterated Ukraine would join NATO — boethius

When and how did they "expand" these forms of support? When the paper was published, the US was already directly supplying small arms up to Javelin ATGMs. They only started supplying heavier arms after the invasion.

The only other change was to use the presidential drawdown authority to supply arms to Ukraine, but this only happened in mid 2021 with russian troops massed on the border.

US stance on Ukrainian NATO membership didn't change anywhere between 2014 and 2022.

provoke a "somewhat higher level of intensity" in the fighting (aka. a giant war). — boethius

It's interesting that you're drawing attention to just how silly your equivocation here is.

are actions that would very likely provoke a larger war between Ukraine and Russia, a war that Ukraine would almost certainly lose at great cost to Ukrainians. — boethius

You're using "A war" here to stand in for anything from an escalation of the Donbas war to a full invasion aiming to completely conquer Ukraine. Those are simply not comparable scenarios.

No where do I state the likely consequences (such as the likely consequences of different policy decisions that the RAND paper explains) are somehow "certain", — boethius

Actually you're doing exactly that, and all the time. In this very post you have repeatedly talked about the outcome of the war with complete certainty.

Experts put significant effort into explaining "doing this will result in that" and then US Policy makers go and do this and the that results. The argument that somehow they thought something else would happen is just dumb. — boethius

If that is the case then why did the experts not outright say "Russia is going to commit to total war to conquer Ukraine"? If according to you, that is what they predicted, and they put "significant effort" into making sure it's understood, then surely they'd just have said it.

If US policy makers actually thought Ukraine could prevail and actually wanted that to happen then they would not drip feed weapons systems — boethius

Again there can be different goals at the same time.

Escalate to what? Obviously Ukraine actually winning. — boethius

Do you think pouring all of the West's weapon systems would have no negative consequences at all? Don't you think countries like China might take a rather dim view of it? Or, indeed, the populations of the western countries.

Which is why I have no hesitation to really believe that Zelensky really did want to prevent the war from breaking out in doing things like trying to control the Nazis, but other factions in Ukraine prevailed (such as those very Nazis just straight-up telling Zelensky they wouldn't do what he says), and I'd have no problem believing many elites in Europe didn't want this war either but didn't prevail against US proxy politicians in Europe as well as US pressure and direct actions (such as stating Ukraine would join NATO, those 12 or so CIA bases in Ukraine, direct arms supply to Ukraine and so on). — boethius

See, this makes me very angry.

Russia invaded.

Russia invaded!

Noone else made that decision. No. One. Else.

All these people that died? They'd be alive if Russia just didn't invade. They didn't have to. Not a single Ukrainian or NATO soldier would have set a single foot on russian soil had Russia not invaded.

It was not necessary. The russian leadership is directly and unequivocally responsible for every single life lost in this war. And you don't even mention them with one single word.

Not made up, I'll go repost the Western media's own investigations into this issue if you really want me to. — boethius

These investigations, as you know, do not support the claim you made.

The policy is super duper clearly provoke a larger war between Russia and Ukraine and therefore in total consistency with that policy the Nazis are supported as they not only do the most provocative things like shell civilians but are also a provocation by just being their wholesome Nazi selves. — boethius

Just repeating the claim doesn't make it true. You claim a specific policy: "to arm the most extreme Nazi groups in Ukraine"

That is your claim, or better your lie. Because it's obvious you won't actually be able to defend it with facts.

Again, I can repost the West's own reporting on these Nazis and their effect on the Ukrainian political process. — boethius

The effect they reported was nothing like what you claim here. You're using a bog standard troll tactic where you'll post a "source", wildly misrepresent - or perhaps just outright lie about - what it says and then forever pretend that you proved your point.

You did not prove your point. You repeatedly ignored all the counterarguments.